Today was my last swim workout before Sunday’s triathlon. I had hoped my last swim would be calm and relaxing. Unfortunately it was not to be the case. The “open swim” area was filled with about 10 children and adults who did not understand the concept of “inside voices.” They screamed and shouted and splashed and made my 32 minute swim quite unbearable. I could not even hear the cheesy pop music that the pump through the loud speakers. How can I swim properly without hearing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”?
Over this past weekend, I had a second go at the bike time trial, but settled for 10.3 miles instead. I just got too frustrated with all the people on the path since I had waited until too late in the morning to go (around 10:00 am). There were people walking and talking on cell phones, people walking and smoking (??) and way too many rollerbladers for my comfort. Then there was the man who actually steered his daughter and her bicycle from the side of the path into my lane, despite the fact that I was moving along at a decent speed and had run my little bell. People annoy me. (Are we sensing a pattern here?)
I did my 5k run time trial on Sunday and I actually made myself run quite a bit more than I have been during my run/walks. I initially thought that I would get up and go participate in a 5k race in a neighboring town, but I decided when I woke up at 6:00 that I would rather sleep another hour and save the $30 entry fee. I managed to finish the humid 5k in 44 minutes which is slow based on my past, but pretty quick based on where I am at currently.
I think I will be pretty good at the transitions. I practiced both transitions on Thursday, even using the apartment complex’s mini pool to get soaking wet in my trisuit to simulate race day conditions. (By the way, I have no idea why that pool is heated when it is the summer and it gets direct sunlight. It was about 85 degrees and almost completely unbearable. I thought most people used the pool in the summer to cool off, not as a sauna). I have decided not to wear socks on the bike after trying it out. I hope that I don’t regret that later. I also think that I may have to put post-it-notes on my stuff to remember certain things like putting on sunscreen.
I have emailed with Running Jayhawk about this weekend’s event and asked her lots of nervous energy inducing questions and she has been so patient to answer them all! It has really helped me relax about lots of the little details hearing more about what things will be like.
For fun later this week (perhaps on one of my two “rest” days) I will post some pictures of all my stuff that I will be taking. It really adds up to a lot when you have three sports to do. The days of running only seem so simple now.
I have been doing several things lately to get ready for my triathlon which is now two weeks away. Here is a list of things I have been up to.
Watched clips on YouTube from other Danskin triathlons. The one at Disneyland looked fun because they swam by some rides. It looked a lot smaller than the one I will doing though and the course was shorter.
I have re-read some bloggers race recaps of Chicagoland Danskin, including Running Jayhawk. It is nice to know what to expect
I bought a bike adapter for my Garmin Forerunner. Now I can just snap it off the bike and into the wrist band to easily go from bike to run. I had previously used blue tape to secure the watch band to the bike and then had to spend several moments removing it later.
I practiced transitions, inside the apartment. I set up my “transition area” in a small area near the bedroom closet. I ran from one of the apartment to the transition area to replicate race day conditions. The cats were very confused.
I examined the bike course on Google Street View to see what the course is like.
I read the official triathlon rules.
I wore my race day trisuit for my brick today. I felt a little silly wearing it, especially because it is bright purple, but no one seemed to be making fun of me.
I am getting more comfortable on the bike and even passed some cyclists today. Yes they were riding mountain bikes and were more concerned with chatting with one another than going quickly, I still felt good passing them. Like the time I swam faster than the eight year old in the lane next to me at the pool.
I have completed the swim time trial (24 minutes for 825 yards) and will do the bike time trial tomorrow. The 5k time trial will be next week. This is supposed to help me predict my race day time.
Last weekend I had a brick on the schedule of 35 minutes biking, 25 minutes running. After getting over my fear of crossing Really Big Road to get to the Forest Preserve, I have been doing all of my bike miles there. You will recall that this is where I did the majority of my long runs last year during my marathon training.
Right after I crossed Really Big Road and got into the parking lot of the forest preserve, I noticed that my chain was making weird noises. I got off and looked it and kind of hoped someone would stop and I ask if I needed to help. I keep meaning to read the bicycle mechanics book that my husband has, but just haven’t got around to it. I still don’t know all of the names of the parts of my bike, let alone what they do or how to fix them when they stop doing what they do.
I pulled on the chain a little and realized it was hitting one metal thing that it wasn’t supposed to be (I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t know the terms). I then remembered something about changing gears fixing chain problems, so I got on the bike and switched gears and the chain went back wherever it was supposed to. I was so proud of myself that I had fixed it and managed to do so without having to call the husband at work. I started on my ride.
All was going well for about 15 minutes or so. I was passing runners and wanted to yell to them, “Hey!! I am really a runner pretending to be a cyclist!” but I didn’t. When I saw some of them struggling as I zipped by, it reminded me how annoyed I got by cyclists last year when I was struggling to complete the last mile of a long run and they seemingly exerted no effort. (Of course now I realize that the “no effort” part is entirely untrue, but there is no question that it is more efficient than running).
As I passed by a runner and zoomed back into the right lane it happened . . . my shoe came unhooked from my bike . . . with the pedal attached to it. Although I may not be a cycling expert, I know that the pedal should under no circumstances be coming off of the bicycle.
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Today’s workout was supposed to be 30 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes running. However, I got a late start and by the time I headed out it was already humid and near 80 degrees. Due to my shortened time frame before having to start work, I just did a mini-brick instead. (A brick is just two sports in a row).
I did 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes running. I even did a timed transition which was 4 minutes, 9 seconds. It involved me unlocking the door to my apartment building, getting my bike in the elevator, coming up to my floor, into my apartment, changing shoes, taking off my helmet and bike gloves, chasing Simba Kitty who had gotten out and run down the hall, and then taking the three flights down the stairs to get outdoors. Pretty fast I thought for all that.
Overall I felt fine, except I was really hot. I should have gotten up early enough to start at 6.